Day 36 of 100 Days of Code & Scrum: Fifth Week Retrospective - No Internet Edition

Happy weekend, everyone!

...Or at least I would have been if I had my Internet back. This objectively definitely has been the most unproductive week for me, because of things that were out of my control. Not having Internet is a HUGE impediment for a modern developer who relies a lot on Google searches, Stack Overflow solutions, online resources, and anything else that has to do with data.

I tried to do whatever I could to remain productive, but it's really hard to not lose my momentum when I'm thrown off by this. Typically, I navigate through my daily life expecting everything to be structured and routinized. I'm pretty bad at responding to unusual things that seem to come out of nowhere.

Either way, thank you all for the continued support and the encouraging words I received from some of you!

Special thanks to my wife and editor, May for editing images and posting the blog on my behalf.

Anyway, I'm not going to skip my retrospective, so let's move on to my daily report!

Weekly Sprint Goals

• build my company website.
• continued to learn Next.js.
• go through the Typescript documentation at least 30 minutes each day.
• continue studying for Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) certification.
• continue networking, but allocate less time to this (coding is more important).

Weekly Review

Uh, oh... here are the things I've done this week:

• company homepage is not even halfway done.
• I did a small portion of the services page until I remembered that I should aim for a single page MVP first and foremost.
• I learned and reviewed Next.js a bit here and there (mostly about react-css-modules).
• I read through the first four chapters of the Typescript Handbook (until Object Types).
• I started learning about how to use Amazon SES and Lambda to implement an e-mail contact form for my website.
• studied Scrum for Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) certification.
• continue to network and expand my connections.

I still made some progress, but this is definitely unfocused.

Weekly Retrospective

Moving on, let's tackle what I've managed to do well, what my shortcomings are, and what I could do better next time.

What Went Great

• I was consistent with studying Next.js and Typescript for the most part.
• continued to review Scrum, even if it wasn't the main focus for this week.
• I got some sections of the homepage have a finished skeleton.
• made some progress with learning how to implement an email contact form.
• reached out to multiple people on different platforms, but without getting too distracted by social media (finally, I can live without checking the bell icon too much).

Some Mistakes I've Made

• I started a lot of things, but finished almost nothing.
• the lack of focus is really bad and goes against Scrum principles.
• because there is no such a thing as partially done, I may as well have done nothing. At least, Scrum says so.
• I also forgot about my "I blogged for 30 days straight" retrospective post.
• AGAIN, forgot to install a website blocker to stop myself from checking off-topic content (subconsciously, I could be avoiding this).

Things I Could Improve On

• have some backup in case I have outage, that way I don't lose too much productivity.
• just focus on one thing at a time, and switching around too much.
• stop procrastinating writing literally anything I'm planning on writing.
• I should DEFINITELY install something that blocks me from checking certain sites at a specific time.
• prioritize tasks that are more likely to help me meet my weekly goals.

Thank you once again, everyone! Have a great weekend!

Resources/Recommended Readings

• Official Next.js tutorial
• The Typescript Handbook
• The 2020 Scrum Guide
• Mikhail Lapshin's Scrum Quizzes

DISCLAIMER

This is not a guide, it is just me sharing my experiences and learnings. This post only expresses my thoughts and opinions (based on my limited knowledge) and is in no way a substitute for actual references. If I ever make a mistake or if you disagree, I would appreciate corrections in the comments!

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